Published: Thursday, 17th January, 2008 9:00am

Barber named best junior swimmer

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FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Carnegie swimmer Eloise Barber was crowned Scottish junior champion in both the 100 and 200 metres individual medley events at the weekend"s Scottish National Short Course Open Championships, setting a new Scottish junior record of 1:04.63 in the 100m.

She was also Scottish junior champion in the 200m freestyle and in the 50m butterfly, she won a bronze medal but claimed the Scottish junior title and a new Scottish junior record. She won a further bronze in the 100m butterfly and was presented with the Citrus award for the best overall performance by a junior swimmer.

Despite being one of the younger swimmers in the competition at 14, Ailsa Hershaw won a bronze medal in the 50m backstroke, was fifth in the 100m and won the B final of the 200m backstroke. She came ninth in the B final of the 100m freestyle and 10th in the 200m freestyle. She was 10th in the A final of the 50m butterfly and finished seventh in the 100m individual medley in a time of 1:07.08, which was a new East District record.

In the 14 and under age group, Blaine Small won bronze in the 400m freestyle and was fourth in the 100m individual medley, just beaten by team mate Hershaw, who won bronze in the same event. Blaine also had a fantastic open meet, finishing sixth in the A final of the 200m butterfly to claim the Scottish junior champion title.

Kathryn Johnstone (17) was fourth in the A final of the 50m breaststroke, sixth in the 100m breaststroke and eighth in the 200m breaststroke. In the freestyle events, Johnstone finished seventh in the 50m, sixth in the 100m and sixth in the 200m. Jennifer Davis (16) was fifth in the 50m backstroke, eighth in the A final of the 200m and first in the B final of the 100m backstroke.

The girls" medley relay team of Small, Hershaw, Johnston and Barber won the bronze after being beaten into third place by City of Edinburgh and Warrender baths. The 4x50m freestyle team of Hershaw, Davis, Johnstone and Barber finished in a dead heat with Warrender, both teams claiming silver medals. And in the 4x100m freestyle, the Carnegie girls again won silver medals after just being beaten to top spot by Warrender.